Another Way
by Rikkudo
Summary: In a world where Madara and Obito prevailed, a world where Naruto was the last man standing. Just as he was about truly lose himself to despair, he was given another chance—a whole new life. The only problem is . . . it's in the past by about 50-odd years. Jiraiya just got a whole lot more annoying, and Orochimaru is even more of a bastard than before!
1. Prologue

**Another Way**

Prologue

~o0O0o~

The wind swept over a desolate and barren plain, racing over the land in a gust of hot, dry air. It was a land littered with the dead, thousands of them.

Uzumaki Naruto watched as the crows descended from the sky like angles of death with their black wings and harsh calls as the other scavengers made their way to the feast spread out before them. He watched listlessly as they tore at the bodies of his friends, as they ripped through flesh and organs, as they broke bone to get at the marrow. He never once tried to stop them from desecrating his fallen comrades. After all, did it even matter?

A gust of wind raked through his sun-kissed hair and played with the golden spikes like an uncle might do to his nephew, but Naruto didn't feel it; he _couldn't_ feel it. His senses had abandoned him.

Konoha had been annihilated. The Will of Fire couldn't survive without its people to hold it in their hearts. The Juubi had extinguished it, Obito had stomped on it, and Madara had snuffed it out for good. There was nothing left but cold, useless ash in a place where there was once a brilliant flame—in a place that was once Naruto's indomitable heart.

High above, the moon gleamed in its full horrific glory—a pattern of concentric rings and commas reflecting down on the earth below. It was horrible, unnatural, and most of all irreversible. It was hopelessness personified, a jailor to the world itself, a prison for the mind.

The eye of the moon was in full effect—_Tsuki no Mei._ It sapped at the free-will of all who gazed at it. It was a Genjutsu on an epic scale, with a range so wide that it spanned the world. There was no escape, no release. Everyone's fighting, all their efforts, all their _deaths_—it was all for nothing. In the end, Obito and Madara had emerged victorious, effectively extinguishing the world's last treasured hopes for freedom.

The two Uchihas had destroyed everyone, except for Naruto. They had left him alive because Obito wanted the boy to suffer as _he_ had suffered, because Obito had _relished_ in his pain and anguish, and because they both knew that Naruto couldn't do a damn thing about it. So they left him standing there in the battlefield, the only living thing in a sea of corpses. They doomed him to the hell he feared the most.

A clap of thunder announced a the arrival of a summer storm mere moments before the sky began to weep. The patter of the rain drowned out the howling of the wind, overpowering every other sound with the soft monotony of the dripping raindrops.

Naruto didn't even realize that the kunai had made its way into his hands, but he did know one thing; after all that time, the understanding had finally seeped into his stunned mind.

"I don't have anything to fight for, anything to live for. Everyone . . . they're all dead." The tears finally leaked out of the corners of his eyes as his pent-up emotions broke like the dam of a river. The rain which was supposed to wash away his hurt only amplified it. His chest hurt with each breath and the lump in his throat made it impossible to swallow. He couldn't bear the pain of losing the people he had forged his bonds with. It tore at his very soul.

It broke his heart.

"They're all dead!" He was crying openly now, staring at his hands like they disgusted him beyond measure, like he wished that they were gone.

He couldn't accept the fact that ultimately, he had failed them all. It was just too much.

Despair, cold and raw as it was, clamped down around his heart in a vice-like grip. Every muscle, every bone, every bit of skin, it all _hurt. _Merely existing was painful for someone like Naruto, because in his eyes, he didn't deserve to. He had _let them all die._

"I couldn't protect any of them!" He screamed into the storm, thunder echoing in response. The kunai was now positioned over his heart, its chipped blade still sharp enough after all that fighting to slice through flesh and bone alike, its jagged edge gleaming wickedly in the darkness of the storm.

Deep within its cage, the Nine-Tails stirred to the dark, negative emotions of its container. Then it snapped open an eyelid, its single slit of a pupil gazing forward though the dank sewer of its container's mind. With his newfound freedom he was allowed access to Naruto's senses, able to see the world as the blond did, able to smell, to hear, to taste, to _feel_. The fox merged his senses with Naruto's just in time to feel the blade shoved deep into Naruto's heart, driven by his own hand.

**"Urg!"** Kurama cut off the connection, immediately sending his chakra to heal the boy as he recovered from the experience of feeling a blade shred through his heart. His eyes widened in horror as the lighting in his cage started to die, fading with each shuddering pulse. He knew that the boy had stabbed himself once more, resisting the healing, fighting against living itself.

**"Naruto, you idiot! Stop this madness!"**

As if in response the lights began to flicker in irregular beats, each fluctuation of the light weakening it until the entire room started to descend into darkness. When the light truly began to die, the sewer started to tremble violently. For the first time in ages, Kurama believed that he was close to death, that he would finally be cast into Oblivion. But at the very least, he wanted Naruto to be able to live, even if that little shit was the cause of his position at the moment. They had lost the final battle, but he wanted Naruto to live on to find a way to make the world a better place.

The Kyuubi no Youko snarled as the thought crossed his mind.

He should have known that it was a foolish sentiment. The idiot was trying to end himself. His supposed indomitable will had been extinguished alongside the lives of his friends; the brat had decided that he had nothing else to live for.

In all honestly, that kind of hurt. _He _was still here, wasn't he? But nonetheless, he knew that few could even begin to imagine the depth of loss that Naruto felt at that moment—he was an orphan boy who'd lost every single one of his friends in one fell swoop. It had shattered him

That realization was what drove Kurama to do what he did. With a blast of power, the fox hijacked his container's body, stopping his knife-bearing arm as it came back down for a tenth strike into his chest. With a shudder of pain Kurama tossed the kunai away.

He immediately forced Naruto's body to plop back down to the ground, allowing the deep lacerations in his chest to close with a steaming hiss. The gouts of arterial blood stopped gushing out in their bright red torrents as the Bijuu chakra did its job with an urgency that could be felt in the very air.

But Kurama knew he had to do something fast when Naruto started to fight him for control.

Just as he was sure that he was about to lose control to the suicidal blond, Kurama made his final move in a single act of desperation. He used every bit of his power, every bit of that pure, condensed chakra to overwhelm reality itself. With a swiping motion of taloned hands, a void opened up before him, sucking in air and all manner of debris.

"Kurama! What the fuck did you do?!" Naruto had finally regained control of his body. At least some of his fire was back, far sooner than Kurama had expected too.

**"I just _saved_ your sorry ass, you pathetic excuse for a shinobi!" **With that, the fox wrestled for command of his container's body once more. With a slight nudge Kurama overpowered Naruto like he was a cockroach beneath his feet. The broken blonde was helpless as he was overcome with darkness.

It was pitiful, really.

Kurama jumped into the tear without a second thought as soon as he finally wrenched control from Naruto's fingertips. Almost immediately, he succumbed to the exhaustion that stemmed from the effort required to bend reality to his will as he and his partner tumbled through the tear in the fabric of time and space.

The Kyuubi was almost completely unaware of how solidly black everything looked, of how there was _nothing _to be seen, mainly due to the fact that he had relinquished his control as soon as he had been sucked in.

Kurama was forced into slumber rapidly, the sudden drain in his energy far too powerful to resist. He had sacrificed himself so that Naruto wouldn't wake up in a world that was ruled by the Juubi Jinchuuriki, but in a younger one, a more hopeful one . . .

He did it, knowing that he had sacrificed every bit of his immense chakra reserves in the process, with the full knowledge that he wouldn't awaken for years to come. But he had full confidence in his blond partner, that the boy would heal, make new friends, and find new people to love and protect.

He knew because the real Uzumaki Naruto would never give up in the manner that this faux facade had moments ago.

Whether Naruto wanted it or not, he would be given another chance. He would be given a new life in a different time.

Kurama—greatest of the Bijuu—gave into his slumber as he and Naruto tumbled through the blackness of Oblivion.


	2. Chapter 1

**Another Way**

Chapter 1: A Tear in the Veil

~o0O0o~

Uzumaki Naruto woke to sunshine and birdsong, to the music of the wind whispering through the trees and to the joyous laughter of children.

It was all so surreal, like a dream.

"Eh? Hey, nee-chan! Who's that weird guy?"

Naruto cracked his eyelids to catch a little boy who looked around nine standing with a familiar-looking blonde girl who was about Naruto's own age. The kid was hopping up and down like a possessed rabbit with his mouse-brown hair flapping every which way, all while pointing at him accusingly.

"Hush," the woman chided her brother, waving a finger admonishingly. "It's rude to say things like that." She then firmly took hold of his arms and forced him to lower his finger. "And it's rude to point."

The child wiggled in protest. "But he's sleeping in the playground!" As if that somehow justified the pointing.

"Huh?" Naruto looked around to find that he was indeed sleeping in a playground—or under the slide to be more precise. The last thing he could remember was Kurama and . . . nothing. Nada. Zip. Nil.

Yawn.

"The hell?" He started to push himself into a sitting position, then immediately winced as pain lanced up his arm. "Gah-!" _Pain_ was actually a weak word for what he was feeling. It was like molten lead had invaded his veins and was now poisoning and burning his blood. His lungs felt like they were breathing in fire instead of air, and his muscles were useless bunches of flesh that screamed in protest with the tiniest motion. Naruto collapsed on himself, his breathing irregular and his forehead slick with sweat. The blonde girl was at his side in an instant, her hands cloaked with green chakra.

"Try not to move," she ordered, running over his body with her glowing hands. Her amber eyes were strikingly similar to someone he felt he should have known, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Naturally, Naruto tried to protest. "I'm . . .—yaaawn—fiiiiiine," he drawled as he struggled to fight off the oncoming exhaustion. The blonde girl merely snorted, as if used to treating unwilling patients. "Yeah, _sure_ you are." She rolled her eyes at him as he proceeded to snore, having passed out moments before.

"Che. Some of you just don't know when to quit. You're just like that idiot teammate of mine." He had yet to stop asking her for a date, even after five years of rejection. Persistence was annoying and inconvenient, she decided. Especially when it came in men. Then she quirked her head. _'Who is he anyway? I haven't seen him around the village before, but that's definitely a Konoha hitai-ate on his forehead. Is he really one of ours?'_

She narrowed her eyes. Even if he wore the symbol of Konoha, the girl was never one to blindly trust. But then again, this guy was totally out of it. He wasn't exactly a threat at the moment. _'Maybe Saru-sensei will—'_

"Nee-chan? Is the weird guy okay?" The little boy peeked over his sister's shoulder curiously, his eyes tracing over the man's spiky golden locks and his tattered orange clothing. He openly marveled at the whisker-like markings on the man's cheeks.

The girl looked up, her amber eyes a bit more focussed than before. "He'll be fine, Nawaki. I'll need you to go home alone today though," she finished with an apologetic look as her brother pouted. "Awwww! But you were going to take me for barbeque! You promised!" He did a strange little dance as he whined, almost subconsciously.

Tsunade's eye twitched. She was really beginning to hate that word. Promised, promised, promised. It was like Nawaki had the memory of an elephant when it came to these precious 'promises'. Being a big sister was hard sometimes.

She sighed, then said with a resigned tone, "I _did_ promise, and you know I never go back on my promises." Nawaki crossed his arms with a huff and turned away from her with an adorable pout on his face. She had to resist the urge to squeal and pinch his cheeks. "So as soon as I drop this guy off at the hospital, I'll come pick you up—"

"—Yay!—" Tsunade twitched at the interruption as her little brother proceeded to do this ridiculous little victory dance, wagging his hips like nobody's business.

"—. . . _After_ dinner for some ice cream. Sound like fun?"

"Ice cream!" His disappointment was all but forgotten as he bounced up and down with excitement. "Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!"

Tsunade grinned. Thank god for ice cream. Best bribing tool ever.


End file.
